The National Weather Service in Flagstaff has issued a Flash Flood Warning for Moenkopi Wash in Coconino County, in north-central Arizona, after a river gauge reported the normally dry wash rising above action stage on Sunday afternoon — and forecasters expect it to crest early on Monday at 29.45 feet near Tuba City, well above its 27-foot flood stage and into what the warning calls major flood stage, with water expected to reach homes in lower Moenkopi Village.
What the warning says, word for word where it matters
The warning, issued at 4:58 p.m. MST on Sunday, November 1 and in effect until 1:00 a.m. MST on Monday, states: “At 4:58 p.m. MST, a gauge on the Moenkopi Wash reported a rise above action stage from heavy rain in the Moenkopi Wash basin. Further rises are expected, with water levels expected to exceed major flood stage. Flash flooding is already occurring.” The hazard is listed as “life threatening flash flooding” from heavy rain, the source is the river gauge itself, and the impact is “life threatening flash flooding of Moenkopi Wash.” The locations the Weather Service says will experience flash flooding include Moenkopi, and the watercourses named are Fivemile Wash, Hamblin Wash, Begashibito Wash and Moenkopi Wash.
For the gauge on Moenkopi Wash near Tuba City, the warning gives the numbers residents will be watching overnight: at 4:45 p.m. MST the stage was 26.0 feet; flood stage is 27.0 feet; and the forecast crest is 29.45 feet at 5:00 a.m. MST on Monday. At 27.0 feet, the warning says, water begins to encroach on homes in lower Moenkopi Village and floods crop fields along the wash. The warning does not list impacts for higher stages, and Awaaz Punjab is not inventing any — what is verified is the crest forecast, the flood stage, and the stated impact at 27 feet, on a wash that was still rising when the warning was issued.
The wider flood warning around it: Cameron to the Hopi Reservation
The Moenkopi warning sits inside a broader Flood Warning the Flagstaff office issued at 4:00 p.m. MST on Sunday for Coconino and Navajo counties, in effect until 10:00 p.m. MST. In that warning, forecasters said Doppler radar at 3:58 p.m. MST indicated heavy rain from Cameron to the Hopi Reservation, that flooding of creeks and normally dry washes was imminent or already occurring, and that between 0.75 and 1.5 inches of rain had fallen in the warned area. The locations listed as experiencing flooding in that warning include Cameron, Tappan Spring, Coal Mine Mesa, Gray Mountain, Wupatki National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Painted Desert Vista, Rocky Ridge, Coalmine Canyon, Standing Rocks, Ward Terrace, Black Falls Crossing and Black Falls — a broad stretch of the high desert east and northeast of Flagstaff — and the watercourses named run to dozens of washes and creeks, among them the Little Colorado River, Dinnebito Wash and Moenkopi Wash itself.
The Weather Channel's alert list for Tuba City on Sunday evening shows how layered the warnings over this one community had become by nightfall: the 4:58 p.m. Flash Flood Warning for Moenkopi Wash running to 1:00 a.m. Monday, a series of other flood and flash-flood warnings through Sunday evening, and a Flood Watch in effect until 5:00 a.m. MST on Monday — the same hour as the forecast crest. Rain was still falling in Tuba City on Sunday evening, with humidity at 91 percent in the Weather Channel's current-conditions read.
Source: The Weather Channel — Tuba City, Arizona alerts and conditions, Nov. 1, 2026
The Flash Flood Warning expires at 1:00 a.m. MST, but the crest on Moenkopi Wash is not forecast until 5:00 a.m. MST — and the separate Flood Watch for the Tuba City area runs until 5:00 a.m. as well. A warning that lapses is an administrative deadline, not a promise the water has peaked; the Weather Service can and routinely does extend warnings, and anyone near the wash should follow weather.gov and local alerts through Monday morning, not the clock on Sunday's warning.
One storm, a whole region under water on Sunday
Moenkopi Wash is one front of the same cross-country storm system that spent Sunday flooding the Southwest. FOX Weather reported the Four Corners region — where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet — was under a Level 3 out of 4 flash-flood risk on Sunday, with a major flood event threatening ground already saturated by recent heavy rain, heavy rain continuing into early Monday, and the system set to sweep across some 35 states through next week, bringing severe thunderstorms to parts of the South on Election Day. In Arizona alone on Sunday, the same system smashed the 1993 record on Oak Creek at Sedona and forced evacuations there, closed stretches of highway, and triggered water rescues and flood warnings from the Phoenix area to the Utah line.
Source: FOX Weather — cross-country storm and Four Corners flash-flood risk, updated Nov. 1, 2026
That saturated ground is the background that makes a desert wash dangerous. Washes like Moenkopi are dry or near-dry channels for most of the year; in a storm like this one, rain falling on hard, already-wet desert soil runs off instead of soaking in, and a wash can go from a gauge reading of 26 feet to a major-flood crest in hours — in the dark, while the communities along it are asleep. That is why the Weather Service's wording is as blunt as it is: this is a gauge-reported rise, not a model guess, and flash flooding was already occurring when the warning was issued.
What this means for drivers — including Punjabi truckers on the northern Arizona corridors
The practical risk on Sunday night is water over roads that cross washes. Earlier on Sunday, the Weather Service's flood warnings in Coconino County listed, among the highways in warned areas, Interstate 40 between mile markers 190 and 203, Interstate 17 between mile markers 334 and 339 and U.S. Highway 89 between mile markers 419 and 427 — the Flagstaff-area corridors that carry freight and through-traffic across northern Arizona, and that Punjabi and other long-haul truckers drive on I-40 and I-17 runs every night. U.S. 89 is also the highway through Cameron, in the warned area, on the route north toward Tuba City and Page. The standing Weather Service guidance for exactly this situation applies to a loaded semi as much as to a car: never drive through flooded roads or washes — turn around, do not drown — because desert floodwater hides washed-out roadbeds and its depth and force are routinely underestimated at night.
The same storm system set a record on Oak Creek and forced evacuations at Sedona earlier on Sunday — read Awaaz Punjab's report on that flooding here: Sedona Ordered to Evacuate as Oak Creek Smashes Its 1993 Record
What happens next
The timeline overnight is specific. The Coconino–Navajo Flood Warning ran until 10:00 p.m. MST on Sunday; the Moenkopi Flash Flood Warning runs until 1:00 a.m. MST on Monday; the Flood Watch for the area runs until 5:00 a.m. MST; and the gauge near Tuba City is forecast to crest at 29.45 feet at about 5:00 a.m. MST on Monday — above flood stage by nearly two and a half feet, in a village where the water starts reaching homes at 27 feet. What residents should watch for is an extension or reissue of the warning before 1:00 a.m., any evacuation or road-closure notices from Coconino County, the Navajo Nation or Hopi authorities for Moenkopi Village and Tuba City, and the actual gauge readings through the night against that 29.45-foot forecast. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if the Weather Service extends the warning, if officials order evacuations, or if the crest comes in materially above or below forecast.